1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to protective covers and more particularly to protective covers for hand-held medical devices. Medical devices, when used in healthcare facilities, are subject to the spread of infectious diseases. Protective covers prevent this.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Infectious diseases that can be spread by contact with contaminated devices include nosocomial infections which are hospital-acquired infections where patients are infected with an organism as a result of contaminated hospital staff and/or surfaces. Nosocomial infections account for longer hospital stays, re-admissions due to newly acquired diseases, disfigurements and/or death. Organisms such as Clostridium difficile, Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) are of utmost concern. These organisms or their spores are transferred from patient to patient via contaminated work surfaces, improper hand hygiene of hospital staff, or transferred on surfaces of medical equipment and instrumentation. The spores are highly resistant to cleaning and disinfection. Currently, no products are EPA-registered or in the prior art specifically for inactivating C. difficile spores.
Hand-held electronic medical devices are widely used in the healthcare industry. They include point-of-care blood analyzers, electronic patient identification devices, medication administration devices, personal data devices, and scanners. These are carried from one patient's room to another coming in contact with numerous candidates for potential infections. When not properly disinfected, they serve as a vector for infectious microorganisms. They pose a risk due to their design and intent of use. While they are designed for rapid recovery of data and multi-patient use, their design poses a problem of how to properly and rapidly disinfect their surfaces since they contain many crevices and surfaces that can house microorganisms. Also hand-held medical devices, being electronic, are not designed for total or even partial submersion in chemical disinfectants. The surfaces can only be wiped clean with available disinfectant products. These chemical disinfectants rely on time vs. exposure to deactivate the microorganisms, and the disinfectant must come in direct contact with the microorganism for a sustained period to render the microorganisms harmless. Therefore, widely distributed disinfectant wipes such as Clorox™ Wipes and Sani-Wipes are not generally recommended for the porous surfaces of hand-held medical devices.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has recommended that healthcare organizations increase the use of disposable products as a preventative measure to decrease the spread of infectious disease. The product of the present invention is intended to meet that recommendation.
It would be advantageous and create an ideal situation in which to utilize hand-held electronic medical devices and decrease patient cross-contamination if the device could be isolated in a closed environment while in use, avoiding direct or indirect patient contact with the medical device. The device could be encased in a protective sleeve while it is in use in a patient room and removed when the device is transported to a subsequent room. The sleeve could be properly disposed of according to infection control protocol, and a new sleeve could be applied. This would create an environment that would contain potentially harmful microorganisms, reducing the risk of patient-to-patient transmission.